I'm still anxious and bipolar, but trying to write too many blogs at once became too stressful. I'm now putting everything into my All About Art blog, which I am updating once a day. I just started a new project: A Year of Making Art. Each day I make art and write about it, including all the other stuff going on in my life, like depression, hypomania, and anxiety.
Hope you'll check in with me there.
I feel so nervous and jumpy. Tomorrow is 06/06/06, and Eloise, my Christian friend, has warned me that the beast is coming.
Last night I had the desire to escape from my life. I’ve been in Ithaca for six years now, and even though we moved to a new house and neighborhood last summer, it still feels claustrophobic. I need to get on the road, to get away, to make a fresh start in a place where no one knows my name.
Oh this is so ridiculous. I want to slap myself aside the head. I have everything I always wanted except fame, fortune and eternal youth.
Sometimes I think I should just give it all up—painting, writing, striving. That could be the door to a new life—a life of nothingness. Maybe then I could find that zen moment, as it all blends into a dull monolithic stasis.
I don’t think so.
For most of the past week, I just felt blah—everything tasteless, no point in doing anything, feeling like my life needed a complete overhaul in order to make any sense. Then on Friday around mid-morning, I noticed that I simply felt GOOD. My life made sense, my body felt alive, and work was interesting again.
When I felt lousy, I kept looking for reasons, and there seemed to be plenty. I had the customer from hell who wanted a painting delivered at a pinpoint time of his choosing, which ended up in my giving him a refund because I couldn’t stand dealing with him any more. At the last moment he came around and was ready to be cooperative, but that was WAY TOO LATE for me.
I also had someone write a really nasty, vindictive review of my book on Amazon.com. And to think, I had provided this reviewer with a free book in order to get the review. Is there no justice?
Bad news contributes to my depression, I’m sure, but good news doesn’t usually cure it. It’s those bipolar chemicals messing with my brain. Too bad I still think whatever state I’m in will last forever. Today is an up day, though, so that must mean I’ll never be depressed again, right?
We just had a good friend visit from Saturday to Wednesday this past week. It was a whirlwind of activity compared to my usual life. We went on hikes, visited the local art museum, went to a movie, ate out, played ping-pong. I cooked lots of great meals, made a blueberry pie, and drank more wine than I should have. In between I tried to slip in a little work here and there, like at least answering my email and making necessary phone calls. But I never had time to read the Sunday New York Times.
Now I am kind of in a daze, trying to find some equilibrium. Oh yeah, I’ve got to do laundry—forgot about that. My mind is a sieve lately. We are also on “chicken duty” for our neighbors who are away for four days—feeding and watering, picking up the eggs, locking the chickens in at night and letting them out in the mornings. It’s fun, but one more task on the agenda.
Is it because I’m bipolar that I don’t do well with these transitions between work and holiday? Or because I’m a workaholic? Either way, it takes me time on both ends to get myself together. When I’m not working, I feel that I’m getting deeper and deeper into a hole I’ll never get out of.
Staying up later than usual, as we do when we have houseguests, is also bad for my bipolar condition. And the size of the breakfasts! One morning I made huevos rancheros with left-over chili, eggs, cheese, salsa and corn tortillas. I thought I would die after eating a plate of that, and had to spend half an hour playing Dance Dance Revolution Extreme II in order to straighten myself out.
Should I give myself a break and take it easy for a couple of days? No, I’ll feel better if I dig deep into my “to do” list and make a sizeable dent.
Recently a bipolar friend wrote about a problem many of us have experienced. People around us don’t see how we could have a “mental illness” when we look normal, speak well, and have been successful. The fact that I have a PhD, have published books, had success with my art, etc., may make people say I have nothing to complain about. Look at all you’ve accomplished, my family and friends say.
What they ignore is the price I’ve had to pay: two small business failures and personal bankruptcies, failed relationships, taking twelve years to get my B.A. because I kept changing majors and schools, bouts of depression that add up to years’ of misery—I could go on, but you know the routine.
I suppose if we’re not drooling, blinking compulsively, and wearing a dirty sweatshirt, we don’t fit people’s preconceived image of someone with “mental problems.” Being neurotic is OK because Woody Allen made neurosis a badge of honor. If you weren’t neurotic, you were just boring, or grew up in the heartland.
Neurosis makes people interesting. Bipolar disorder, on the other hand, means they’re crazy. If they stop taking their meds, they could jump off a building or smash up your windshield with a bat. The guy who ran off an airplane and was shot by security guards recently was said by his wife to be “bipolar.” He evidently didn’t take his meds.
It took me a long time to convince my husband that I am bipolar. The fact is, I have had symptoms since I was a teenager, but wasn’t diagnosed until my forties. When I got the diagnosis, it explained so much of what had gone wrong in my life. It also explained the “drugs-sex-and-rock-and-roll” lifestyle I often engaged in when I was younger in an attempt to self-medicate.
My family likes me when I’m hyper, as long as I’m not too hyper. When I’m down in the depths, they don’t understand why I don’t just “get over it.”
I don’t know if we’ll ever convince those around us that we do have a serious mental health problem and that we have to treat it seriously and take care of ourselves. If we can educate them and they’re willing to learn, great. If not, we still have to treat our illness seriously and take care of ourselves.
I suppose for some of us there is a perfect medication regimen that works steadily day to day, week to week, year in and year out. But I fear many more of us do not find the perfect solution. We experience side effects that are intolerable for one reason or another. We miss the old zip in our lives, that hypomanic edge the meds have taken from us. Or, even when we’re good little boys and girls and take our meds conscientiously, we still have episodes of mania and depression.
There are many ways meds can disappoint, just as there are many valid reasons for taking them. For most of us, some form of medication is vital to managing our lives, but they are just one piece of the story. If we do nothing to manage our lives in other ways, the meds will most likely not provide the fix we’re looking for.
That’s one reason I think it’s just as important, if not more so, to deal with our psychological issues, our health issues, and the management of our daily routines. It’s not very sexy to focus on going to bed and getting up at regular hours, getting enough exercise, and eating well. But if we study ourselves, we soon learn what makes us tick.
I know, for instance, that I need to take a walk every day if possible. When I neglect to get outside and get some exercise, I can feel the difference. When I overeat or drink too much alcohol, I have trouble sleeping at night. When I let negative thoughts take over my brain, I can slide too easily into despair.
We wish there were a magic pill we could take that would simply make us feel great, but life is more complicated than that.
It’s Sunday morning. The weekend always presents me with vague feelings of dissatisfaction. Since I don’t have a “real” job, I tend to just continue working on the weekends, but in a more relaxed way. I sleep later, and sometimes we go out in the afternoons—take a long hike or go to a play at our tiny local theatre.
I have this idea that everyone else is having fun on weekends—going out to see people, or entertaining them at home. Why are we the only ones watching Netflix on Saturday nights?
Yesterday it was cold and rainy most of the day, so that discouraged me from going on a hike. Around four o’clock it cleared up and I felt we must get out of the house, so we went downtown to our local co-op gallery to see the latest members’ show. The work of one new artist excited me, but most of the other stuff was as expected, and in fact, a step down for some of the members.
I am such a phony—I know several of these artists, and I am always complimentary to their faces. But the work I saw yesterday was definitely not their best. I suppose a group show brings out the worst, not the best, in people.
Well, forty-five minutes later, we were back home, ready to have supper and watch Netflix. So much for Saturday night.
As I sit here feeling sorry for myself, I realize it’s these thoughts that are dragging me down. Do I do that because I just like to wallow in it sometimes? Could be.
Do you ever go through times when you feel you are losing a sense of who you are? I had my worst experience with this when I was eighteen and a student at the University of Southern California living in a dormitory. I looked in the mirror one day and could not recognize myself.
Since then, this feeling has popped up occasionally when I am under a lot of stress or going through a difficult transition or relationship. But today I noticed myself writing in my journal about having that feeling right now, when there doesn’t seem to be any reason for it. My life as an artist and writer is pretty much on track. I’m happily married and enjoying living near my daughter and her two children. There are no big goals looming ahead of me other than the usual fantasy of “rich and famous,” which I don’t take seriously any more.
So what’s the scoop? Sure, aging can take away some of our sense of ourselves. When we look in the mirror, we no longer look eighteen, even though we might feel it on a good day. As we age, we do lose pieces of ourselves—our hair or hair color, our strength and stamina, our sex appeal.
But what I am feeling today is an inner sense of loss, not an outer one. It’s as if I am going through the motions, living a life I’ve been programmed to live, instead of acting authentically. I feel like I am living in a glass bowl and people looking in can tell I am a phony.
Well this sounds crazy, and I’m beginning to scare myself. Maybe it’s just that I ate too much last night and couldn’t fall asleep until almost 3 a.m. Or is the reason I feel this way that we spent some time with neighbors this past weekend and I acted like a phony then? When I’m with people I don’t know very well, I pretend to be who I think they think I am rather than WHO I AM.
That explains it.
Does it make any difference which kind of anxiety we have? I always thought I had “social” anxiety because I suffer for days ahead of any social event where I have to talk to people I don’t know very well. But once I’m actually at the event, I usually do pretty well. No one would ever believe I had a problem because I seem so outgoing.
Adrian, on the other hand, doesn’t worry about things ahead of time, but when he is in the middle of a social gathering with people he doesn’t know well, he has trouble talking to them. He is often miserable at these events and very quiet. He reports later that he “couldn’t think of a thing to say.”
Well, we just spent three days in New York City sightseeing and attending the opening for an art show that I am part of. I was nervous until I met the gallery director on the morning before the show. After meeting him and seeing the gallery, and especially seeing my work hung beautifully near the front entrance, I felt much better and my anxiety dissipated. By the time I actually got to the opening, I was a little nervous, but mostly fine. Friends, family, and art clients came to celebrate my art and my new book, and it’s always fun (for me) to be the center of attraction.
We also paid a visit to an old friend of Adrian’s who is a psychiatrist, and we talked about our anxieties. After I described the usual scenario, he said that what I had was “performance” not “social” anxiety, because I was only nervous before the event, not at it. And I have to agree with him on that one.
Not that a label for it is going to make my anxiety go away, but insight always helps, I think. Maybe one of these days I’ll be able to go to a social event without demanding of myself that I “perform” in some special way. Maybe I’ll be able to just go as me and see what happens.
Anxiety: A nudge that wakes you up fifteen times during the night. A slightly queasy feeling in your gut and tightness in the chest. A clumsiness that makes you bump into the edges of furniture and walls, or cut your finger while peeling an apple. A dread for the day that makes you linger in bed in the mornings. A general gloom over everything you do. These are the forms anxiety takes in my life. It may have other variations in yours.
What should we do about anxiety? I suppose, if you know what makes you anxious, you could just stop doing whatever that is. But most of us don’t want to give up the thing that makes us anxious, like our jobs or leaving the house or going to a party. I do feel sometimes like making a general proclamation about the things that cause me anxiety: “From here on out, I say no to any social invitation whatsoever, in the name of mental health!”
That would be a relief. And one of these days I might just do it. But the thing that’s bugging me this time, and has been bugging me for weeks, is a trip to New York City we’re making in four days in order to attend the opening of an art show I’ll be in at a new gallery in Chelsea. It will be a big, big party with friends, relatives and art clients coming to celebrate the event. How could I not want to be part of that?!
I do want to be part of it, but some corner of my brain evidently doesn’t, and has been making me anxious as hell for these past weeks leading up to it. One thing I can be thankful for is that it will all be over by this time next week, and I’ll be able to breathe freely again. In the meantime, I live with it, wondering why the taste has gone out of life.
Whenever I started a new job in the past, I spent many anxious days fearing that first day or week of work. But after I did the job for a while, I got used to it and the anxiety disappeared. Or it didn’t, and I learned that that wasn’t the work I was cut out to do.
But now that I’m self-employed as an artist and writer, I don’t have work anxiety any more. It’s the invitation to a party, a get-together at the neighbors, or having people over for dinner that makes me crazy. When I count how many days of my life I’ve spent waiting for social events to be over so that I can breathe again, I wonder if I’m making a bad deal?
It's been a long winter (still not over here), I've had a cough on and off I can't get rid of, and life has been mostly blah. But still, I tried to pretend everything was hunky dory. It's true I slept late and had trouble getting up in the mornings, it's true I did not feel like painting, which is my life's work and raison d'etre, yet still, I tried to deny I was depressed.
After a petty fight with Adrian the other night, however, and going to bed feeling crappy and pissed off, I closed my eyes and saw the image of a gun pointing at my head. "Bang," I thought. "It would be a relief."
Well, I guess you would call that suicidal ideation, though I knew I wasn't actually going to do anything to resolve my condition. I was just going to suffer. "You're depressed, you idiot," I said to myself.
It was a relief to finally admit what I was feeling. I told Adrian the next morning. "You know I have no patience when I'm depressed. It just makes me bitchy."
Hey, I'm still depressed and I'm still bitchy. We had another little tiff today. But at least I know the reason for it, and so does he.
A long time ago I decided to write a book called The Stimulation Principle, because I adamantly believed this principle guided most people’s lives. The gist of the theory was that we all needed something new, something exciting, something—anything, even if it was bad, to get our juices moving and save us from the depressing boredom of everyday life.
The theory was certainly true for me. Whenever things stayed the same, I got bored first, and then depressed. Making changes in my life stimulated my hypomania, and that was always worth more to me than stability or financial peace. Thus, I moved 31 times in my life, took classes at four schools just to get my B.A., and changed jobs and careers on a regular basis. My dream of the good life was hitting the highway and discovering something new. Jack Kerouac’s On The Road was my bible.
Some things just naturally stimulated me, like competition of any kind, whether in games, sports, or on the job. One of the thrills in my life was beating my older brother at ping pong when I was nine months pregnant. I loved being an underdog and coming out on top.
It was only after I was diagnosed as bipolar that I began to realize not everyone thrived on stimulation. I had always wondered why, when I took a new job and a coworker told me they were planning to leave the company, they were always still there by the time I had left. It was the same when a friend complained about her apartment. I would have been gone in months if that was me, but it took her years to get around to moving.
I wonder if it’s a trait of bipolar disorder to crave stimulation and change? I’ve talked to others who ran their lives on the same principle, but I have no idea how widespread this tendency is.
I’m trying to learn to stay put longer these days. I also know you have to stick with something in order to make a success of it. I’m working on it.
A bipolar friend asked me the other day if I thought having a cold made my bipolar symptoms worse, as it did his. I was relieved to hear his complaint, because I’ve been suffering with a cold on and off for the past two months, and it’s impact has been much larger than I thought it should have been. I’ve been beating myself up for not being more productive, focused and energized just because of “a little cold.”
Last night at my bipolar support group meeting, I asked what others had experienced about colds. “I get depressed when I have a cold,” said one. “I get a cold at the end of a manic high,” said another. “The cold brings me down."
Is the cold a cause or an effect? Do our bodies give us colds to slow us down? Before I got this batch of colds, I had started an over-ambitious plan to market my new book, and made up a to-do list that would take an enormous amount of time and energy to accomplish. From that point on, I would always be behind because there was no way to keep up with the plan except to stay in a permanent hypomanic state.
Maybe my body did me a favor by coming down with these colds? Maybe it’s time for me to reassess my plan and get real.
Is it just me, or is aggressiveness a bipolar trait? I notice that when I'm in a group of my peers, I often push pretty hard to make my point. One night this week I was at a meeting of fellow artists discussing how to write an artists' statement, and I gave a couple people a hard time. They were too polite to complain, but I realize this is a trait I often fall prey to.
It is even worse when I am dealing with authority figures. When I was working on a PhD in creative writing, I antagonized one of my professors so much that he withdrew his committment to writing me a reference letter. I always pushed my ideas aggressively in classes, but this time I was at a party and drinking wine. Getting a little high makes me much worse. I thought I was simply joining in the sport of argument for argument's sake, but my professor thought otherwise.
Family gatherings are another place where I can get aggressive without provocation. At our last reunion I was pissed off that my brothers were playing tennis without me one day, so I took it out on my poor sister-in-law, making her play tennis with me when she preferred to be socializing and relaxing. A couple days later I was so adamant about how we were going to organize the next tennis event that one brother thought I was angry with him. No, it was just me being my aggressive self.
When I'm on the hyper side, aggressiveness seems to come naturally. But sometimes I think that acting aggressively is so much fun that it stimulates my hypomania. We are a very competitive bunch in my family, for the most part, but when I get my teeth around that bone, I don't let go.
I found myself exhausted from the traveling and the jet lag after visiting California for eleven days. We'd planned on ten days, but when our flight was delayed, we decided to stay an extra day rather than take a chance on sleeping at the Chicago airport. There is only three hours difference between California and New York, but it always takes me several days to recuperate.
The first day, I give myself permission to accomplish very little. Get the mail, open it, read your email, buy food. But when the tiredness persists, and I face all the work I need to catch up on, I get overwhelmed, and then depressed. "I can't cope with all this," I think, "when all I want to do is take a nap."
If I let myself, I could quickly slide into a deeper depression as I decide I'm worthless, and that nothing I try to do will be successful anyway. It's easy to wallow in these kinds of thoughts when you're exhausted. Thankfully, I took the naps and then finally took a walk outside in spite of the cold and wind. The walk is what really perked me up.
I'm still way behind in my work, but I'm slowly getting my energy back. Two grandchildren will be staying with us this weekend, so that should take my mind off my problems. The only thing required of me will be to have fun with them and feed them occasionally. I can handle that.
I am traveling with bipolar disorder because, wherever I go, it is with me. We’ve been on a perpetual trip together since I was a teenager. But what I’m talking about here is traveling away from home, this time to California to visit stepchildren and their families. So far it’s been delightful.
We went on a short hike yesterday that turned into a two-hour walk through town, on a path alongside a creek. We saw some strange steps that went straight up and took them. They led to a narrow path that we followed to more steps going down. This was a back-track and didn’t really help us get where we were going, but when you’re on vacation, you don’t have to worry about that.
Not worrying about getting where I’m going is what I need to do more. The day was mostly sunny, in the high fifties, and felt like summer to Adrian and me. When we left Ithaca, New York, Friday morning, it was 16 degrees and there was ten inches of new snow on the ground.
After our long walk, we stopped at a café for a drink and rest with our granddaughters, and I felt the pleasure of just sitting, peacefully, without a plan of action. Later we played bridge, teaching the two girls how to play.
Too often I deny myself these kinds of days. I push too hard to get to the goal line and punish myself when I seem to be losing yards instead of gaining them. But this week I’m ready to hike, to sit, to play, and “just be” in the world.
Last night I woke up at 4 a.m. and my mind immediately jumped to my latest dumb deed, analyzing in great detail every failed step.
"Wait," I told it. "Don't go there or you'll never get back to sleep."
"Too bad," said my mind. "If you wouldn't persist in making these mistakes over and over in your life," I might let up. "But you never change."
"Aw, I'm sorry, you're right. But I promise this time I will learn from my mistake. I won't do it again."
"Right."
Thus, I lay there wide awake, reviewing this mistake and collecting others in my net as I sifted through the recent past. Then, moving back into the distant past, I soon had before me a collection of evidence strong enough to string myself up.
After a couple of hours I was fortunate to drift into a light sleep replete with disturbing dreams. What was I doing in a hotel room with my husband's ex-wife where one of my stepsons was in bed with a bimbo named Stephanie?
Tonight I'll skip the nuts and chocolate before bedtime.
Lately I've been depressed, and still suffering from a winter cold I can't shake. At the same time, it seems that business decisions I've made are not working out. I feel that I should change what I'm doing, try something new.
Yet I know that one of my failings is a lack of patience. It could be that I need to stay the course and give it more time. I also know that whenever sales are slow, that fact contributes to my down moods.
There are lots of good things going on in my life, but I tend to overlook those and concentrate on the negative when I'm depressed. Add my lower energy level and stuffed head, and all I want to do is crawl into my cave and sleep.
Now is probably NOT a good time to change business plans. Logically I should wait until I'm feeling better and until I've given the present plan a real chance to succeed. Yet it keeps gnawing at me that I'm going in the wrong direction.
I can't tell today whether my judgment is bad or I'm just feeling bad. I think it's time to give myself a break, to take a day off mentally and physically. Let's see how I feel about it tomorrow.
How many times a day or night do you say, "I should have done x," or "He should have done y" or "We should do z"? If you're like me, it's way too often. At least, it used to be before I read a terrific book by Byron Katie and started to follow her suggestions.
Some of us blame others for everything that goes wrong. Some of us blame ourselves. Either way, it's a losing battle. As Katie points out, we can't change the past, so we may as well learn to love it. I haven't come that far, but at least I spend less time reliving it now.
And that word "should" is not only a waste of time concerning past events. It also weighs us down when we use it to refer to the present or the future: "I should exercise more." "Adrian should put things away when he's done using them." "Owen should answer his phone when we call."
The "shoulds" are a waste of energy, especially if we think we're going to change other people. But even if we want to change ourselves, the word "should" won't get us there. In her book, Loving What Is, Byron Katie presents an exercise consisting of a series of questions to ask yourself about each issue you think "should" be different.
The exercise works. I don't always remember to use it, and often fall back into old patterns, but when something is really bugging me, it's the surest path to relief.
I haven't been posting here for a while because I've had a horrible cold virus for the past week. It started in my throat and worked its way up to my head, which still feels like it is stuffed with wool.
A head cold is not a major disability, and many people, like my daughter, continue to work right through it. But if you are susceptible to mood changes, or in an already stressful situation, a simple cold can exacerbate other symptoms.
Colds sap your strength and interfere with clear thinking. If you are already prone to depression, you may feel even more overwhelmed by life's tasks. If you're a workaholic like me, you feel like you'll never catch up with everything on your "to-do" list.
Being even mildly sick also interferes with our relationships with others. My husband Adrian, who is seventy-nine, is hard of hearing, and it's frustrating to me when he can't hear what I say. But hey, it's not his fault, unless he isn't wearing his hearing aids, in which case I DO get annoyed. When I'm sick, I have even less patience, and find myself snapping at him.
One good thing about getting a cold or any temporary sickness is that it forces you to take a break and gain a new perspective. While lying awake in bed unable to sleep because of a splitting headache, sore throat and stuffed nose, I had plenty of time to reevaluate my life. Basically, I thought, Please end it now!
But we do survive, and then when we wake up one day feeling better, we gain a new appreciation for ordinary health and well-being.
"I just finished your book; it was compelling and so emotional and candid. I resonated with so many things, from large to small, and thank you for being so honest." --Nancy M. If you are interested in the life of an artist, issues of depression and bipolar disorder, or the challenges of caregiving for elderly parents, I think you will find this book a moving account of one woman's experience with all three.
Click here for more information or purchase from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble
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